Junior Lady's Mile

Conceived as the first camp for our younger children away from home. Staying at the cracking campsite above Dawlish Warren, with its great swimming pools & plumes.The weather considering we were in the British rainy season, was very kind to us. Sun shine & cloud. Just fabulous for camping.The children were all little gems & we head a great time.

A wonderful opportunity to develop their - Social skills: living together with a group not of their choosing requires skill.- Personal Organisation: we tell them what they need, but they need to find their kit & organise it. Forget to bring what we ask & they have a 'life lesson'. It's a large step up from family trips for most pupils.- Resilience: they will fall out with peers, get tired, get a bump or a graze, learning to sort this little hiccups out & move on, is an important lesson.- Compassion: not all pupils are as strong or skilled as each other, recognising the ability of others & tailoring their activity to meet their needs is a real skill.- Empathy: Understanding another point of view, we play lots of games & believe me, we have lots of little squabbles, learning to empathise is a great skill. They have to learn to sort these problems out themselves.- Learning to fail!: yes FAIL, schools are strange places, you pass or fail exams & yet life is not like that, at work when you fail at a task. We rethink, replan & try again, until we find a solution. Outdoor pursuits is a great place to fail without the stigma, learning to try again. 'Perfect Practice, makes Perfect Permanent'. The old cherry of 'Practice makes Perfect' is not true, it's 'Practice makes Permanent', practice the wrong thing & the wrong skill becomes permanent!- 7 P's: Prior Planning & Preparation, Prevents, Pitifully Poor Performance. We give the children lots of opportunity to plan & prepare for tasks. Careful planning is likely to lead to success. Jumping in & cracking on without any prior thought is likely to lead to failure. Making a fire is a great task to teach this.- Getting bored!: Wonderful!, no electrical entertainment, so go & create your own entertainment, explore, organise, recruit your peers, life's an adventure, but you won't find it on your phone or computer. Great means of research though! Not on this camp though.- Recognising the skills & qualities of others: we all are special, everyone has something to offer. Having the time & inclination to find out what the skills, interests & passions of others are requires an open mind!

This is just a quick 10 min brain storm & just scratches the surface on what the children will be developing on our Outward Bound activities.